My fabulous new accountant walked into the house this afternoon right when I was on the phone being assertive to the decidedly unfabulous new optometrist’s office. Oops, way to make a good first impression there, bonehead.

As an aside, how cool and scary is it that I need an accountant now? But I got way in over my head there, and it’s better to pay someone to do it right.

The reason I was being assertive is a long and irritating story. My good eye doctor moved from his convenient Costco location, and I was out of contacts and past my prescription date. So I was handed a flier at the doctor’s office one day for a new optometrist located right there. How convenient that would be! It’s right on my site; I can sneak away during the day and zip in when I needed to.

So I did that one day last week. I went in to see if they had an appointment and what the charge was for a contact lens exam, thinking I’d make one for later. The girl at the desk told me it was $49 and would I like to be seen right then? Since the waiting room was empty, I figured I might as well get it over with.

The hesitant technician was something that I could live with, but a quick exam turned into an hour-long exam right off the bat. My old doc never took more than about half an hour once I was in the chair. I didn’t have time to mess around with having my eyes dilated, since I had to go back to work, so I paid my bill (the entire amount, as I am self-insured for optometry) and promised to come in the next day after work for the dilation part. I made an appointment for such and everything.

The next day, I got in there, and the waiting room was almost standing-room only. I sat there. I read every damn magazine in the place. I watched the clock. Finally, after an hour in which no one ahead of me was called in either, I got up and went to the desk. I said, very politely, that I was not going to wait any longer, that I would skip the eye dilation part, and could I please have my prescription. I was not going to buy contact lenses there after all of that; I would just go to Costco. At no point was I rude to any of the staff. I was hustled into the glasses room, where I explained that I did not have time to wait for the other half of an appointment, and eventually got my written prescription.

As I left, a guy raised his eyebrow at me. I asked how long he’d been waiting, and he said three hours. Oh yes, I made the right call there.

And so the story ended, I thought.

Until I got a bill in the mail today. Now, remember that I paid in full the entire amount that she quoted me, after verifying the amount twice. Now, I was suddenly liable for over $200 more? I think not.

I started calling, and eventually got someone in billing. She said that there was an exam fee of thirty dollars, which, if paid, would waive the rest of the fee. I was quite clear that that was not the amount which I was quoted, and that I wasn’t going to pay it. That didn’t even make sense. Where was the rest of the two hundred coming from? She tried to tell me that there was a $150 exam fee also, which I completely balked at. Which is it? $30 or $150? And why on earth would you expect me to pay either? Neither amount added up to the amount on my invoice.

She kept insisting that if I paid the smaller amount, the larger amount would be waived. I carefully explained to her that when one walks into a business establishment and asks the price of a service, one expects the price of the service to remain consistent. She then threw out the old, “well, I can’t verify what anyone said,” act. At that point my poor accountant was standing uncomfortably in my living room, so I dropped it. I told her that she could expect me to never darken their doorstep again, which I’m sure broke her heart, since she must think I’m some sort of scam artist. But I’m not; had I been quoted that full price at the beginning, I would have either paid it or walked out and found my old doctor’s new practice.

She tried to condescend to me that I can’t expect an exam for free. Oddly, I did not expect an exam for free; I expected one for the price which I had been quoted. I fail to see the difference between “exam” and “contact lens exam” or why one would need to be charged for both. Especially since due to their own poor scheduling, I didn’t even get the full exam. Oh no lady. You do not talk down to me. 

She thinks I’m paying the $30. I may, just to keep my credit report clean, as it’s cheaper than taking them to small claims court over it. But you can be damned sure that I will go down, pay it in person, and insist on a receipt that shows my account as being completely paid off. I will never recommend their services, and boy do I talk to a lot of people in the area. And for the record, I believe that Castle Optometry is extremely poorly managed and unprofessional, from the receptionist yapping to her friends on her cell phone in the waiting room and hollering incoming phone calls across the building to her coworkers, to the eye doctor who didn’t even make a token appearance at my exam, leaving me with a clearly inexperienced technician who couldn’t figure out how to operate a sliding catch on a piece of equipment. Never again.